


Flux Buddies [Epilogue]

by Outcasts_Anonymous



Category: The Yogscast
Genre: F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-04-07
Updated: 2020-04-07
Packaged: 2021-03-01 21:41:54
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death, No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,382
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23524012
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Outcasts_Anonymous/pseuds/Outcasts_Anonymous
Summary: An Epilogue, of sorts, to the Flux Buddies story. Basically, it's a retelling of the final scene.
Relationships: Duncan Jones/Kim Richards, Lalnable Hector/Specimen 5
Kudos: 9





	Flux Buddies [Epilogue]

The wind blew back his hair, and his hands absently brushed over the sapphire around his neck. His eyes stung; his mind ached, and his body felt heavy- but then again, it had for a while now. His free hand buried itself into the short grass by his feet; running his finger through it in a way he had often done with her hair, only to clench tight and rip the greenery from the soil. Below him, the sea; clear and blue and far too bright crashed against the banking; never quite reaching high enough to spill over the precipice before him.

The sun shone violently in the sky; clear of clouds, and were it not or the cold breeze of the sea, Lalna could tell it would have been a nice day.

Far too nice, given the circumstances.

He hadn't even been back for a day, and yet he felt as if he'd spent enough time by the cliffside to fill several lifetimes- and if it wasn't for his need to eat and drink, he gladly would. There was nothing left to do, after all; nothing worth doing, at least. Not without her. Maybe that would be something he could do? Figure out how to remove his need for food and water, that is. It's not like he wasn't already practically half robot anyway, and with Nano gone, he was definitely going to start forgetting to eat again.

Lalna closed his eyes as more waves of guilt and pain washed over him; the strength of which he hadn't felt in such a long time. He'd seen the signs; he had known that she was planning on doing something so _incredibly_ ** _stupid_**... and yet he did nothing. He had sat and listened as she gave him a lecture on looking after himself; content to just let her worry whilst he worked to save them- hell she had said _'I'm not gonna be around forever, y'know...'_. Her voice echoing around inside his head caused his eyes to sting even more, however he didn't cry; he didn't have any tears left _to_ cry.

Then there'd been the whole goodbye speech she'd given him before she'd detonated that fucking nuke; combine that with how she never lowered her portal gun from him... Why he hadn't just done _something_ was a question he would spend eternity asking. Taking in a deep breath of salt air through his nose, Lalna exhaled; allowing his eyes to slowly open.

Bringing up a hand to his greasy mess of hair, he tugged down his goggles to hold in front of him.

He should have been the one to set off that nuke; he was the scientist, not her; he was the nukes expert, not her. This whole thing had started because of his obsession with nukes, technically, so he should have been the one to end it. He rubbed a thumb over the crack in one of their now purple lenses- and for the briefest of moments, he allowed his mind to be filled with memories of the old world; of his life before her.

Xephos, Honeydew, Sips, Sjin, Rythian, Zoey, and a bunch of other blurred faces passed by his mind. There were flashes of explosions and fire; forcefields; farms mixed in there as well, but most of it was nonsensical; hundreds of different moments smashed together into one. He shouldn't be able to remember all of those events; all of those names, after all most of those names hadn't met this version of him; most of those events, another version of him had been present at. Still, he remembered none the less.

Because if he forgot, even for a moment, then any and all purpose his life at this moment served would be gone. If he forgot, then those names; those events, would be gone forever, as there would be no one left, able to remember them.

The crunching of grass behind him brought him out of his musings, and in no position and with no want to fight, Lalna merely let his goggles fall to the floor before his crisscrossed boots; looking back out to sea. The new arrivals made no noise, other than the crunching of grass underfoot, however where one pair of footsteps stopped, the other continued, until finally a lab coat all too familiar became visible out of the corner of his eye.

To his left, Lalnable was content to stay standing as he, too, looked out to sea. His eyes were not as heavy, and his head did not ache- however his hair blew backwards in the breeze, and on his face the exact same pensive look as on Lalna; their lips tense and in a light scowl. Neither spoke for a solid few minutes, and the air around them grew no tenser in all that time, than it did when the lab coat turned to face him.

"So, you finally won, huh?" They shared the same voice, but that did not mean that had to share the same attitude. The fact that Lalnable sounded subdued; calm, even with his bad throat, brought no end of confusion to Lalna. He didn't let this show however; far too exhausted to bring any action from the thought. With a stiff neck, Lalna turned and looked up to his left; his eyes meeting Lalnable's red ones. Where he expected to see amusement; gloating; and fulfilment, he was only met with impassiveness.

When Lalna didn't answer, Lalnable let out a soft grunt before lowering himself to sit next to the man; suppressing his pained groans as he did so; landing on the grass with a dull thud. Lalna watched, unblinking, however once the man was on the floor, he turned back to the sea; letting out a tired sigh of his own. A few seconds later, Lalnable would do the same; looking away from Lalna and back out to the tides.

"Do you want to know why I originally cloned her?" Lalna quickly turned his gaze to the monster; their eyes meeting again for the briefest of moments, before Lalna looked back to the grass; giving and almost unnoticeable nod, before looking back to the sea.

"I was lonely, and I was scared, and I was lost in a world that I never belonged in in the first place... And then, by some miracle, I ran into you; the one clone of mine that should have found it the hardest to achieve peace, and you were joking and smiling and laughing with that girl. At first, I was confused; I was angry; how had you managed to find that peace, when I hadn't... how had you managed to change, when I hadn't...

So I started spying on you... and that was how I figured it out. You hadn't achieved that peace; you hadn't changed. It was her that brought you that peace; it was her that changed you." Lalna's tongue felt numb and useless in his mouth as he listened to him speak, though he found that even if he were able to talk, he didn't want to.

"I figured that, if this girl was able to do that to you, then there was no reason it wouldn't work for me... so I set about making Echo. You already know it took five attempts, and even then she still isn't perfect, but my theory was correct. She... helped me. She was different from yours, but at the same time, she was the same..." Lalna let out a wet scoff, looking over to Lalnable.

"So what? You planning on rubbing it in my face that she's still around and Nano isn't?" He snapped.

"No." Once again, the scientist was caught off guard- however this time his eyebrows raised in shock, even if it was slightly, at the man's claim.

"Then... why are you here?" Lalnable took in and then released a deep breath of his own, before moving to untie his hair; letting it out of the ponytail it had been resting in, and shaking his head vigorously. Looking back at Lalna, Lalnable felt his lips from a line.

"When Mother and Nano were killed, their Flux link was broken- and because of this, Echo's Flux also went away. Echo's Flux was only there because she was a clone of Nano, and not because Mother had any contact with her..."

"And?" Lalna asked, his head tilting ever-so-slightly sideways as it shook in confusion.

"Even after I successfully created Echo, I continued my research into cloning- and I nearly had the process perfected- if not for one small issue. The Flux. I could create the perfect clone of anything I wanted, but if the original was infected, then no matter what I did, the clone would also be infected. I was at a dead end in my research... and then your cured the Flux; you killed Mother..." Lalna stared at the man with narrowed eyes as he tried to understand what he was being told; if you looked hard enough, you could probably even see the gears turning in his head.

Then, it clicked.

"Wait... you don't mean..?"

"Yep, by killing Mother you basically handed me the key to perfecting my cloning," Lalna felt a tired smile appear on his face, though he didn't think he'd be able to hold it for long.

"If it were anyone else I'd be proud of you, but it's kinda hard to be proud of a murderous psychopath discovering the key to what's basically eternal life," Lalnable responded with a gruff shrug of his shoulders, as if to say 'what can you really do, eh'.

"Well, would'ya be proud if I used it to bring Nano back for you? Sorta like a thank you for, y'know... not letting the world get turned to utter shit?" Lalna's tired smile fell into a sad one, and with the incentive of the sound of a crashing wave, the man turned back to the sea.

"I wouldn't say proud but... yeah, something along those lines. Then again, I could see that backfiring hard on both of us..." Lalnable's own eyebrows; still with dried flecks of blood stuck in them, raised this time. The man had been expecting a lot from this experience, but that hadn't been one of them.

"What'd'ya mean?"

"Well," Bringing up the sleeve of his lab coat, Lalna brushed harshly against his face in an attempt to clear it of grease. "Right now, I would sacrifice everything I have left to see her again; to hold her again; to hear her laugh or call me a dumbass; to eat some of her home cooked noodles... but I don't think I'd be able to look at her without thinking about how she's a clone; about all of the promises I made her that I'd keep her safe; about how the real version of her is dead because I wasn't quick enough at finding a cure, and I highly doubt she'd want to stay with me after I let her _die_ , so you'd end up having to look after a second clone..."

The grass behind the two scientists crunched underfoot as the second of the arrivals began to approach, however neither men turned to look.

"Lalna, I cannot believe I'm about to actually say this to you, but you did your best; she doesn't blame you!" The man in question rolled his eyes, reaching for his goggles on the floor and picking them back up; his fingers fiddling with them once more.

"She'd have to be stupid to not blame me after how badly I let her down! Ever since the day she fell into my fountain all those years ago I made it my job to look after her; to teach her everything I could, and to protect her from anything that she wasn't ready for. And I failed. She fell into my Flux sphere, and became infected- and for years while I tried my hardest to figure out how to cure her she suffered through voices and visions and night terrors and eventually **you** and fucking _**Echo**_ , and the Flux was spreading all that time!"

"I kept telling her that I'd cure her; that I wouldn't let her get taken over by the Flux, but after everything that she suffered through it still took her _dying_ to be free of that fucking purple shit!" The pity with which Lalnable was staring at him with make Lalna feel sick. He didn't want pity from that monster, but he made no move to leave. His eyes had begun to water again, which meant that he'd regained the ability to cry. The footsteps behind him stopped as they reached his back, and through the tears he saw Lalnable turn to face the new arrival.

"Don't call me stupid, you stupid, stupid asshole..." The voice was weak, and wobbly, but he recognised it instantly. Though he'd originally guessed that the second presence had been Echo, he now knew he was wrong. They had identical voices sure, but the person behind him didn't have Echo's accent- and combined with what Lalnable had already said... it didn't take Lalna even a second to spin around and launch himself from the floor; his large frame wrapping itself around a crying Nano.

"Of course I don't blame you... I _never_ blamed you!" Nano whispered; wrapping her own arms around the scientist, and burying her face into his shoulder. Both were free of Flux, and so for the first time in a long time, both of them were able to hold each other without fear of it spreading- and so they were going to take full advantage of that.

"You two have a lot to talk about, so I'm gonna go fuck off back to my tower; don't expect me to be nice the next time you see me; this was a one time thing..." Lalnable called out, slapping his knees before pushing himself up and off of the ground; his joints popping as he went. Neither Nano nor Lalna responded to him; too busy crying into each other, but he didn't care. Walking past the two of them, Lalnable left the cliff face, and began his journey home; for once, actually smiling as his mind drifted to his own Nano; to Echo.


End file.
